Can Justice System Interventions Prevent Intimate Partner Homicide? An Analysis of Rates of Helpseeking Prior to Fatality

When women are killed, they are more likely to be killed by an intimate partner than anyone else, and a substantial proportion of women who are killed by an intimate were abused by that intimate partner before their death. The proportion of men killed by an intimate partner is much lower and prior research indicates that male homicide victims are likely to abuse their intimate partners prior to their deaths. Yet, limited research has examined the criminal and civil justice help-seeking of intimate partner homicide victims. This study examines administrative data from one large urban police jurisdiction to understand rates of help-seeking by homicide victims in the 1-3 years prior to the homicide. Across all intimate partner femicide victims, in the three years prior to the homicide, police had been in contact with the victim for a domestic violence complaint in 91% of cases (44.9% resulted in arrest), with an average of 6.2 visits per contacted victim. Among male intimate partner homicide victims, 73.3% had been the complainant on a domestic violence case (38.1% resulted in arrest). Fewer than 5% of victims sought protection orders before the homicide. The findings of this paper outline the high rate of engagement of police officers with intimate partner homicide victims before their deaths, and highlight the opportunity for homicide prevention through integration of risk assessment (to identify high risk cases) and social service interventions